Introducing allergenic foods early to prevent food allergies in baby?

I just read this article To Prevent Kids' Food Allergies, Start Peanuts, Eggs Sooner which talks about how a review of existing research now suggests starting babies on the more allergenic foods (peanuts, eggs, dairy, soy) around 4-6 months as this early exposure helps prevent kids from getting food allergies. The previous advice has been waiting a couple years to start kids on those foods.

What's a paleo mum of a 5 month old to do? I exclusively breastfeed but my little one is starting to get interested in food. Breast is best, but my girl has a mind of her own and I want to encourage her interest in whole food. Although we are a paleo family now, I don't want the nutritional choices I make for her now to negatively impact her life by possibly giving her food allergies. She is her own person and when she is old enough will be making her own diet choices which I am sure will not be paleo all the time.

I think I'd be comfortable with introducing allergenic foods that are not paleo as she's interested along with other whole foods that we're eating but what does the paleosphere say? They would not become a large part of her diet by any means but I'm curious what other people suggest.

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Answers

I haven't looked into the studies to back it up yet, but my ND/pediatrician gave me a handout at our last visit talking about the introduction of grain before 3 months or after 7 months could lead to an increased risk of type 1 diabetes. In general think we been overthinking things and have errored too much on the side of avoidance with feeding our babies. My baby started teething freakishly early (9 weeks), so with the blessing of our doctor we started on solids at 4 1/2 months. I've been giving him small tastes of just about everything I eat, and have purposefully given him a little oatmeal, rice, and let him lick buttered bread in the hopes that introducing it during this window will give him greater digestive flexibility later in life. I think the way we used to cram baby cereal into their mouths 3 times per day is certainly not necessary, and likely detrimental, but introducing modest amounts of grain to stave off later autoimmune reactions seems prudent.

Very shaky observational research with way too many confounding variables. I wouldn't buy into it. I also don't see the 6 month mark as any sort of significant threshold, as their results have huge time spans. Seriously, this is mainstream garbage measured among people who eat crap and feed their kids crap. Don't listen to it. Your kid will be just fine, and she'll inevitably try all that nasty junk at some point. Let it happen in its own time, I say.